In clear plastic bags then on to their front yards.
What is the power of a magnet in space vs. on Earth?
There are relatively few highly magnetic metals (iron/steel, nickle, cobalt etc.). For most practical purposes; aluminum (considered paramagnetic (i.e: you would never be able to feel it's attraction to a magnet) is not highly magnetic neither is magnesium (again considered paramagnetic) (or copper, silver, brass, pot metal etc, etc), magnesium is quite light weight, as is another paramagnetic metal titanium. Take a magnet and try to lift a piece of aluminum foil with it to see for yourself.
The huge electromagnets you see used to lift metal in junk yards act on the iron in the steel parts.
It costs on the order of $10,000 per pound to lift any thing into earth orbit, if I recall correctly, so; I'm sure that you can see the cost benefit of making things that go into orbit out of light weight aluminum or titanium vs. heavy weight iron and/or steel...
BTW magnets should be expected to work largely the same in orbit as they do on earth (other than minor differences/interaction with or the variation in strength of the earths magnetic field).
It may be possible to use magnetic attraction on some rare earth magnetic components in some space junk, however, I am pretty sure that most of the junk, i.e fuel tanks, will not be magnetic enough to make magnetic attraction a practical method of capture/restraining the object for salvage/retrieval.
https://www.apexmagnets.com/news-how-tos/what-are-magnetic-metals/
Enjoy!
